• Conflict: The new wars that Colombia is fighting after the FARC
  • Armed groups: Catataumbo, land without law between Colombia and Venezuela
  • Colombia.A former FARC sniper: "I've never hesitated to shoot"
  • FARC: The UN denounces that since the peace agreement 600 minors have been recruited to fight

It is not a general strike to use, with pickets and nails washed down the roads to force compliance. The "armed strike", summoned by the Colombian guerrillas, means burning any means of transport that does not comply with its order and taking drastic reprisals, which can lead to death. The order is clear, if you don't stop, bullet .

The smallest criminal organization, the EPL (People's Liberation Army), which was ahead of the others and decreed its own strike since February 12, concentrated in the northern region of Catatumbo, department, has already begun to incinerate cars, motorcycles and buses. from Norte de Santander, border with Venezuela.

The ELN (National Liberation Army) and the FARC-EP dissidents, for their part, organized theirs between Friday 14 and next Monday 17 . The first, throughout the national territory; the latter, only in the department of Cauca, west of Colombia.

"That the population remains in their homes and workplaces, but that has nothing to do with land, river and air transport," said a subversive eleno, in the video they spread on social networks to announce the decision. Surrounded by uniformed men and armed with guns, he also warned that those who decide to circulate, protected by the caravans organized by the Army in the most troubled areas, will suffer the consequences of "being used to sabotage unemployment . "

The Central Command of the FARC-EP dissidents, in its statement to join the initiative, said that "personnel who do not comply with our warning will be a military target for our units."

Hence, in Corinto, department of Cauca, where both terrorist bands are very strong, the people interviewed by this newspaper say that no one will dare to send their children to school, go to work or go outside in those days. "You have to preserve life. Although the Government forces schools to open their doors, I do not think students or teachers go. Life counts more," says a city official, who asks not to give his name.

"I am sure that in the end there will be very few who dare to open shops because then these people [the guerrillas] wait for you any day you leave town and do something to you, " says a merchant. "Also, if one moves the car [car] or the motorcycle, if they don't burn it right there, their militiamen take the picture of the plate and another day they set it on fire."

An ELN member shows his bracelet.

So far, they have not given the concrete reasons to protest or choose precisely those dates and not others, apart from challenging the government of Iván Duque, unable until now to conjure the onslaught of the different guerrillas that have occupied the land they left behind. the former FARC and are increasingly strengthened, thanks, to a large extent, both to the expansion of drug trafficking, the main source of finance, and to the Venezuelan sanctuary where high command officers reside and can train troops.

"We are dissatisfied because it disrupts the daily lives of the inhabitants. There is a lot of tension, a lot of fear and from Friday, everything will be closed," a neighbor of El Tarra, the epicenter of the ELN in the Catatumbo, told the newspaper in a telephone conversation. , jungle and coca region. "Better everyone still . "

Although President Duque and his defense minister, Carlos Holmes, said that the Military Forces will guarantee mobility throughout the country, increasing their presence on the roads, and that carriers who suffer losses will be able to collect insurance, the first burns of the EPL They show that they will not be able to fulfill it in peripheral Colombia where the guerrillas are strong.

"The poorest and the furthest from the centers of power, sidewalks and remote villages, are already suffering the violence generated by unemployment," Álvaro Jiménez, columnist for Semana magazine, analyzes for EL MUNDO. "The ELN aims to show that they exist, that they have strength, is a strike for their own people and to tell the country that they are a relevant actor , without realizing that they show the irrelevance that violence has for the majority of this country," he adds. who participated in the past in peace talks with said guerrilla. "People do not give a damn what happens in a village of Ábrego, Hacarí [North of Santander both]. The only thing they are going to get is that they win the positions that they ask to militarize and right the mentality of this country."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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